I Got You To Wear My Ring
by Vampire121208
Summary: Booth and Bones are out west and the murder victim isn't the only thing to be uncovered...past season 4...kind of floating around out in Bones world D read and review


**A:N/ Please read and review! Enjoy!**

This heat was unbearable. Brennan gracefully brought a thin hand to her sweaty brow, and with the elegance of an English Queen, swiped at the beads of perspiration threatening to roll down into her eyes. She frowned, bringing both hands back before her, gently prodding the skull of the remains half exposed from the dry mud of the canyon.

Standing, she dusted off her exposed knees. The hiking boots Booth had had the foresight to inform her to bring were not so much uncomfortable as unfamiliar. She missed the easy flats she had recently taken to wearing more regularly. She could feel the areas where the cool of her sweat was drying, only to be remoistened by her turning around. It really was too hot.

Booth stood behind her, eyes shaded with his left hand as his right held a water bottle. He looked undeniably good looking, khaki shorts and an unbuttoned pale blue shirt, white undershirt peaking out whenever he turned. Suddenly, catching his eye, she felt embarrassed to look such a wreck. She was sure her hair must have frizzed beyond control anymore, and her thin green tee-shirt must be stained and soaked through. But when Booth smiled and said naturally "Bones? What'cha got for me?" she felt all anxiety flee from her body and she returned to the scientist she was at heart. Booth always knew how to get to her, good or bad, she realized.

"I am comfortable in the identification of the remains as those of a child between eight and ten. I won't be able to confirm race or gender until back at the Jeffersonian however." She declared, snapping the sweaty latex gloves from her hands. As she tugged the constricting plastic from her fingers, it snagged on the one ring she had not taken off before entering the crime scene.

"Loud and clear Bones. I'll have one of the techs pack it all up and we'll meet it in D.C. by tomorrow night." Booth said quickly, turning and motioning for one of the newer agents to come forward. Brennan didn't listen as Booth relayed the message, motioning around to various people who would help the young agent if he had any problems.

In fact, it wasn't until Booth's shade stood behind her, blocking her from the suffocation of the hot Western sun, did she truly come back from the place her mind had flown.

"Bones?" he said softly, questioningly.

She felt him behind her, felt his warm breath on her already sweaty neck. But she couldn't say it. She couldn't turn around and to his face, confess her one and only true secret. So much has changed, so many lessons learned and lines crossed in the past four years that she sometimes feels she knows him so well, that she doesn't know him at all.

How will he feel? How will he think when she breaks down and shuts herself off? The nightmare of his worst imaginings coming true. But how does she know that he wants this as badly as she thinks she does. How can she tell? She once told him he was the people person, and she the bone lady. That's the way they always had been. But now the ball was in her court, as Angela would say, and she had to decide when to ambush the other team.

"Mhm, Booth?" she murmured, eyes trained on her single hand. Mind on a single thought. Two separate worlds.

"Bones? Can we please go get into some air conditioning now? You, better than anyone, know my hair can't take this much heat. Or I'll look as fried as you!" he teased, his slightly damp hand pressed to the small of her back.

"I'm not fried. By all means, you are more than overly persistent that I keep my water bottle with me at all times and to remain in air conditioning for…" she began, as the two made their way towards the tan pickup truck the agency had provided for them.

As soon as the cab doors were shut, air blasting and windows rolled tightly to the roof of the car, did Booth turn to her and smile.

"I caught you looking." He joked, turning the key into the ignition.

"I look at a lot of things Booth. You're going to have to be more specific." She answered curtly, not meaning to sound snappy. The heat had gotten the better of her that day, present condition applied. She was not ashamed to admit that, so she twisted her body closer to Booth's in the small cab of the truck, aiming her body to the air-conditioning vents next to his steering wheel.

It was then she saw Booth swallow. Her leg, in the process of turning her body, had nestled itself against Booth's and their sweaty skin felt to good in the places their exposed legs met. A smile tugged at her lips. She half wanted to reach across and run her hand down his thigh, and reached her hand out to do so, until his voice stopped her.

"At the ring." He gulped, turning the truck onto the expressway, heading back to small motel they had booked that morning. He didn't want to admit how damn great it felt to have her pressed against him, smelling so earthy and looking so adorably burnt.

"My glove caught on it and my attention was focused to getting the latex off without damaging the stone. I know we talked about how important the stone is to you. It was your grandmothers after all." She rationalized, fidgeting with the hem line on her shorts.

"There's something on your mind Bones. I can tell. You haven't been yourself for a while…is there something wrong?" he baits. The truck is steady now, coasting down the road. There about twenty minutes away from their motel now.

"Booth I'm fine." She sighed, running her hands up and down the tops of her thighs nervously. She doesn't like where this conversation is headed.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asked cautiously.

"About what?" she whispered, blinking her eyes and telling herself that it's just the sudden exposure to cold air. Not the words wanted to explode from her tongue, craving to burn a hole in his heart where she used to be.

A baby.

He wants her to say that she feels a little lightheaded, or maybe a little off kilter. But she doesn't. She wants them to get back to the motel. To shut the door and tug at one another until together they fall into one another, like the grandest of canyons outside their bedroom window.

But she knows it can't be like that.

He already has a hunch that something is wrong; something is occupying her mind more than regularly. But he just has to get her to use the words he's been trying so hard to beckon out for the last day.

"Pull over." She sighs, eyes set straight ahead on an invisible center point. She wants to scream, shout, bolt from the car as he calmly pulls the truck over and parks them in the scarce shade of a deserted Indian market.

"Walk with me." She whispers, her hand lacing with his. He automatically opens his own door, helping her from the cab with the hands of a gentle lover.

Together they walked the twenty or so feet to the edge of a small canyon. If she looks down, she can see the empty house at the bottom of the rocky walls. Closing her eyes and freeing her hand from Booth's she turns her body so that he remains looking out over the cavernous hole and she is facing him. He knows she doesn't want him to turn, doesn't want him to see the words she has to say. He knows she wants him to hear her, not see her and worry about her.

"Do you remember the day you brought Parker to the Lab? The day we told him about the engagement?" She began.

He smiled. "Yea Bones, I remember. He spent the whole car ride grilling me about why you had started sleeping over. I wanted to tell him so badly, just get the words out. Just tell him that I loved you and that I wanted you to be happy and that I was over the moon that you could be happy with me."

"But you didn't." She said quickly.

"No, Tempe, you know I waited until you were with me." He didn't see where this way going, but after knowing Bones for so long, his patience had multiplied.

"I remember Booth. I remember standing on the platform with Angela and Jack. I remember you calling my name and my turning around. I remember Parker bouncing up and down in his spot next to you, the biggest smiles on both your faces. And I remember feeling jealous." She whispered.

He turned now, hand slowly reaching out to her dejected head. "Why Bones?" he choked, eyes glistening and sweat rolling down his brow.

"Because I had always told you how against having a baby I was. How much I didn't want a child, to have a child and put them through this world. But when I saw you and Parker there, I just wanted him to run up to me and call me mommy and for you and I to be that 'one' you're always telling me about. I wanted us to be a family." She cried, reaching out for him. He pulled her close to her chest, kissing the top of her head as he shushed her softly falling tears.

"But we are a family. We are. I couldn't ask for a better family than you and Parker. Having a child of our own would be a miracle Tempe, but I know that I am more than lucky enough to have a smart and funny and perfect love like you. And a wonderful boy like Parker. I know I'm lucky." He comforted.

"But what if we could have that child Booth?" she questioned, breaking away from his embrace. "What if I could do that? What if I were doing that?" she pleaded eyes boring into his.

"Doing….that?" he asked, awe and amazement etched across his face.

She nodded her head slowly, taking in every twitch and movement of his face.

"You're pregnant?" he whispered, holding her still but stepping back to look over her body.

He could see it now. Now that he looked for it.

The slight roundness that had started developing. To think, all this time, he had been teasing her that she was eating more than usual. That he must have been stretching her appetite.

He had stretched her appetite…by way of a baby in her womb.

He laughed. He actually laughed, and he took it back as soon as he saw her cringe.

"Bones…What's wrong?" he begged, taking her back into his close embrace. The sun was baking them now; he could feel the warmth of it being replaced with the burn of regretted sunburn.

"You think I'm going to be a terrible mother. You do. Don't pretend you don't." She said, eerily calm. Disentangling herself from Booth's arms she turned and stalked to the edge of the canyon.

This side of her blank eyed and edge pushing, Booth had never seen. He cared to never see it again.

"Temperance Brennan Booth! I have loved you since the first day you opened that mouth of yours. I have wanted to spend the rest of my life with you since the day you first smiled at me. I have wanted to wake up to that smile every day of my life. And for the past year, I have. I've woken up to you, beautiful and natural. In my arms. I would give anything in the world to have a child with you. If only she has your eyes and your nose and your mouth and your hair and your ea…" he shouted, muted by the image of Bones turning around and stalking back to him.

"If this baby doesn't have your eyes or your nose or your mouth or your hair or your ears, Seeley Booth? I'm sending you back to the factory. If you can't make a child as beautiful as you, then I want a div..!" she shouted, voice echoing around the canyon as her eyes blazed a wonderful cool blue and tears dried quickly on her cheeks. She was silenced, this time, by Booth's pointer finger on her chapping lips.

"Don't you know that you had me at 'as beautiful as you'?" he teased, brushing her hair behind her ears before stooping down and planting a rather well receipted kiss on the lips of his recently discovered pregnant wife.

"I don't know what that means." She sighed when their lips parted and his succinct chuckle told her that was alright.

It was all going to be alright.


End file.
